Bringing Highly Efficient RLV-Return Mode "In-Air-Capturing" to Reality

Abstract

An innovative approach for the return of reusable space transportation vehicles has been proposed by DLR: The winged stages are to be caught in the air and towed by subsonic airplanes back to their launch site without any necessity of an own propulsion system. This patented procedure is called inair-capturing. The performance gain by this advanced method shows a possible increase in delivered payload between 15 % and 25% or allows for significantly reducing the size of a reusable system without any loss in payload mass when comparing to winged fly-back. The paper gives an overview of ongoing experimental and numerical work at DLR in raising the TRL and proposes a development roadmap on how to bring this efficient technology to reality.